


In the Days When Lands Were Few

by amamini



Series: Fics That Got Left in the Bentley [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Agnes Nutter's Prophecies, Alpha Centauri (Good Omens), Alternate Universe - Apocalypse Actually Happens, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Crowley Loves Outer Space (Good Omens), Crowley rants like nonstop, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fallen Angel Aziraphale (Good Omens), Inspired By A Series of Unfortunate Events, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Queen (Band) References, Sad with a Happy Ending, Song: '39, Songfic, Tags Contain Spoilers, yelling at god
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-01-16 18:28:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21275732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amamini/pseuds/amamini
Summary: Aziraphale was gone, and in his place, there was only fire. Crowley sat on the floor of the bookshop, flames dancing around him, asking himself why.In which Crowley really does go to Alpha Centauri.





	1. the ship sailed out

**Author's Note:**

> i got a LOT of inspiration for this fic from [ "Ouroboros Forever and One" by iblankedonmyname](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20006338/chapters/47369425) !!! oh my god please go read that fic. this story is not related to it at all, but in this house we love and support all What If The Apocalypse Did Happen fics, that's called solidarity.
> 
> for your listening enjoyment, [here's a playlist i made based on this fic](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1tnclmrqCND9CttOhMdn58?si=WhFOiypoRpW9SGoqM0DDOA)
> 
> thank you for reading!

> “I will love you until the chances of us running into one another slip from slim to zero, and until your face is fogged by distant memory, and your memory faced by distant fog, and your fog memorized by a distant face, and your distance distanced by the memorized memory of a foggy fog.” 
> 
> \- Lemony Snicket, _ The Beatrice Letters _

* * *

Aziraphale was gone, and in his place, there was only fire. 

Crowley sat on the floor of the bookshop, flames dancing around him, asking himself _ why. _ Why had he ignored Aziraphale when he called? Why did he shout, “I won’t even think about you,” and drive away with that lie still hanging in the air? Why did he let the one thing that mattered to him in this godforsaken universe out of his sight?

Aziraphale was gone, and in his place, there was Crowley, surrounded by fire.

He opened his smoke-stung eyes, and he saw _ that book _ just lying there on the floor. The book that the girl on the bicycle had left behind. _ The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch _. The book that Aziraphale had been searching for for hundreds of years. The Holy Grail of prophetic books, the one that Crowley, despite his demonic miracles, could never find. 

Aziraphale was gone, and in his place, there was Crowley, hugging an ancient book to his chest, surrounded by fire.

With trembling legs, he willed himself to make it to the door, the smoke nearly choking him. The smell of burning paper that had been held so lovingly, so carefully by the angel’s soft hands. The smell of fear from the people on the street, running as far away from the crumbling building as possible. The smell of sulfur, but whether that came from the brimstone that burned inside him or from the hellfire that burned around him, he couldn’t tell. There was no smell of Aziraphale anymore. None of his cocoa, none of his new cologne, none of his holy presence, none of his dusty old clothing, none of him.

Aziraphale was gone, and in his place, there was Crowley, hugging an ancient book to his chest, staggering out of the bookshop, surrounded by fire.

When he opened the door, he felt a weight settle onto his shoulders. He was now living in a world without Aziraphale. He had _ never _ lived in a world without Aziraphale, not really. Even when they didn’t see each other for centuries, there was always the reassurance that he was _ there, _ that he was living and breathing on this earth, too. But now he wasn’t. Crowley descended the steps of the bookshop, completely alone, with no one to turn to for the first time in over six thousand years. 

He removed his melting sunglasses and let them fall to the sidewalk. There was no use in trying to be a good person and use a trash can, the whole world would be one big dumpster fire in a few hours anyway. On an oil-slick road, only a few miles away, Pollution smiled, not really knowing why. On this smoke-choked sidewalk, Crowley let out a long, defeated breath, knowing exactly why. 

With a snap, the precious book in his hands was transported to a special pocket dimension that he only used for special occasions. This pocket dimension previously contained three things: a cassette tape of _ The Velvet Underground _ (an album he would not let metamorphose into _ Queen’s Greatest Hits _ for the fourth track alone), a cabinet stocked with enough alcohol to destroy the liver of every human in London, and a delicate golden ring he had picked out eleven years ago. Wouldn’t be needing _ that _anymore, he supposed.

Aziraphale was gone, and in his place, there was Crowley.

And then, there wasn’t.

Aziraphale was gone.

And Crowley was gone, and in _ his _ place, there was a crow.

We have seen Crowley in his snake form before. It has its pros and cons. Pros: improved sleeping experience, valid excuse to go nonverbal, quick and easy escape routes from awkward situations. Cons: increased sensitivity to change in temperatures, complete lack of limbs, skin shedding. Overall, Crowley preferred to stay in his human form, but he could shift into any size and shape he wanted.

On some nights when he really missed flying, he took to the sky as a crow. Nobody ever noticed an extra crow in London, or in Mesopotamia, or New York, or any other place where murders were common. The word “murder” here refers to a group of crows, and not to the act of homicide. Crowley did try to avoid places with too many murders—that is, of people—because he figured some other demon must be at work there, and he would do well to stay away. He did, on occasion, find temporary homes in a few murders—that is, of crows—in which no bird ever gave him a sideways glance because of his funny eyes. Well, no more sideways than a bird’s glance can be. Crows don’t have much choice in the angle of their eyes, and don’t mean anything by their seemingly-judgmental glances most times. 

But today, Crowley flew away from the Earth’s many murders—that is, of people and of crows—and took to the skies on his own.

Alpha Centauri wasn't too far away, he could make it on his own. He had to. What other choice did he have?

Aziraphale was gone. Now Crowley was gone. And in their place, there was only fire.

** _In the year of '39 assembled here the Volunteers_ **

** _In the days when lands were few_ **

** _Here the ship sailed out into the blue and sunny morn_ **

** _Sweetest sight ever seen_ **


	2. many a lonely day

The speed of light is about 186,282 miles per second, or 229,792 kilometers per second, for all those reasonable people who understand the metric system. At the speed of light, you could travel around the equator of the Earth seven times, though I don’t know why you’d want to do that. Not much sight-seeing you can do in only a second.

In the Alpha Centauri star system, there are three very creatively named stars: Alpha Centauri A, Alpha Centauri B, and Proxima Centauri. It had been a rough day at the star-naming office when they were discovered, and no one ever really bothered to do anything more creative with them. If you ask me, they’d be better off named Stephen, Clarisse, and Big Shiny. 

This being said, the closest of the three stars is Proxima Centauri (Big Shiny), and it’s just over 4.22 light years away from Earth, meaning if you were to get in a light-speed space ship and travel at 186,282 miles per second (or 229,792 kilometers per second), it would take you just over four years, two months, and two weeks to get there. 

Crowley, however, did not travel at the speed of light. He traveled at the speed of Crowley, which is not a speed that can be quantified with simple human numbers. That is to say, he could have traveled faster than the speed of light if he wanted to. He could have been there in an instant. But he’d had a very long and emotional day, and he didn’t think he could handle that at the moment. 

So he found himself traveling not as the crow flies, but as the Crowley flies. The idiom “as the crow flies” means to travel using the most direct route between point A and point B, not obstructed by silly human things like traffic jams and hellishly-designed motorways and walls of fire. The idiom “as the Crowley flies” means to travel however the hell you want, with the intention to get from point A to point B, but taking several pit stops across a few solar systems to just sit and wallow for a few weeks before you set out again. 

After all, it would be rather silly of him to travel “as the crow flies”, seeing as once he exited Earth’s atmosphere, he shifted from a crow into his true form. He hadn’t been able to embody his true form in over six thousand years, and the sensation of the transformation was a lot like cracking every single vertebra of a stiff spine. If human eyes could comprehend him, he might look like a huge snake, about the size of the Great Wall of China, with three sets of wings that could topple most of the world’s mountain ranges in a single motion. He didn’t have a _ color, _ per se, but was covered in iridescent scales that shone varying shades of passion, love, and devotion (often mistaken by humans for red, gold, and black) from every angle. Crowley felt a freedom coursing through him that had not been there since before his fall; it was a feeling that said _ “this is what I am meant to be, and there is no questioning it.” _ He was free to fly about the cosmos as he pleased, no agenda other than to eventually find his way to Alpha Centauri. 

Eventually, Crowley did make it there. And once he was settled in among the stars, he realized how utterly and terribly alone he really was. 

Many people have said, “There is a difference between being alone and being lonely.” This is true. Crowley was _ alone _ because Aziraphale was _ gone _ , and he was _ not _ coming back, and Crowley had _ nobody _ with him. However, Crowley was _ lonely _ because _ Aziraphale _ was gone, and _ he _ was not coming back, and Crowley had _ nobody _with him. Sure, there’s a difference. 

Crowley (in all his true-form glory and lack of tangibility) poured himself a drink and thought to himself, “Welp. Here’s to eternity.”

** _And the night followed day and the story tellers say_ **

** _That the score brave souls inside_ **

** _For many a lonely day sailed across the milky seas_ **

** _Ne'er looked back, never feared, never cried_ **


	3. write your letters in the sand

Crowley quickly realized that no amount of alcohol could have much effect on a 13,000-mile-long, six-winged serpent, and, with a sigh, shifted back into his human form. When the choice came down to being drunk or being beyond human comprehension, he’d take being drunk any day. It wasn’t like human comprehension mattered much anymore.

How long had he been in outer space, anyway? If Crowley had started a stopwatch the moment he flew away from the bookshop, by now he’d see the seconds tick up past thirty-one million. But he had never been much in touch with the concept of time, even when he could see the sun rise and set to mark each day. Out here, there was absolutely nothing to mark the passage of time; no sun, no clouds, nothing to grow or die. So every passing moment felt like its own eternity, indiscernible from the moment before or the moment following. But time didn’t really matter if you could never run out of it. 

_ But you can run out of it, _ something inside him whispered.  _ Aziraphale did. _

“Shut up,” he snarled, to no one in particular, and he reached into his pocket dimension to pour himself another drink.

And another.

And another.

Out here in space, alcohol was a lot like time. Crowley had a near-infinite supply of it, so keeping track of how many glasses and minutes went by was inconsequential.

He looked up at the stars that surrounded him. “Beautiful,” he whispered. “You guys are a lot bigger up close, ya know that? I forgot. Fuckin’ enormous and fuckin’ beautiful.”

The stars did not respond. 

“D’you remember me?” He unfurled his wings, soaring higher up (or maybe it was lower down, hard to tell). “I was here. That was all me in the… in the beginning. And it wasn’t my fault, ya know. That they kicked me out. I didn’t want to leave you guys all alone.” He raised his glass in a sort of half-toast. “Didn’t we have fun? Me, all stupid and glittery and you, all… I don’t know, also glittery. Those were good times!”

Draining his glass and summoning another, he continued. “I never  _ asked _ to be a demon, ya know. All I asked was why we had to do all that… stupid office-work stuff. You know me, I wanted to make more stars.  _ No, no, _ they said.  _ Take it down a notch, buddy. Let the Almighty make some stuff. _ She had better things to do! I don’t see what was so bad about wanting to do  _ extra  _ work. C’mon, everyone needs a hobby, right? What was so wrong with mine? Not really fair of God to give us the power to create and then tell us we’re not allowed.”

A distant light seemed to twinkle faintly. Otherwise, the stars did not respond.

“Hey God!” he shouted, vaguely angling his head up, but not really knowing where Heaven was in relation to him. “Can you hear me? You never answered my question! What was so bad about wanting to make things, huh? Wanted to keep all the ‘creating’ to yourself? Scared I’d do it better than you?” 

He scoffed. “Well, looks like the joke's on you. I  _ did _ do better. Look!” He threw his arms out, gesturing to the stars that surrounded him. “My creations are still here! Still burning a million years later! Still going strong, even when I wasn’t around to take care of them. Well where’s your creation, huh? Oh that’s right, it’s gone! You  _ fucking destroyed  _ it! You killed it all!”

Crowley felt tears burning his cheeks, but he kept on his tirade. “There didn’t have to  _ be _ an apocalypse and you know it! There was _ no reason _ to wipe out the planet just so your  _ stupid perfect angel _ s could have a  _ stupid fucking pissing contest _ with Hell! Make them fight it out on their own turf, it doesn’t even matter. You could have made a new planet! Why did you have to take mine?” If there was a floor beneath him, Crowley would have collapsed to it. 

“You didn’t have to do it. Why couldn’t you just leave us alone? We were  _ happy _ .” His voice broke, and with it, a part of him. He was tired of shouting to a God that would never listen. “So that’s it? You couldn’t just let us be happy? You’d rather  _ destroy _ your creation, your humans that you _ said you loved, _ than let us be happy? What the fuck kind of God does that?”

The stars did not respond. 

He let out a long, steadying breath and shook his head. “So much for a ‘Great Plan’, huh. No room for me in all that Greatness, was there? No room for a demon who was never bad enough. But there should have been room for  _ him. _ He’s  _ good, _ I’m telling you. Every day did his fucking best to be  _ so good  _ for you. Okay, sure, he’s not perfect like that  _ wanker  _ Gabriel, but why would you want him to be? He would always worry about getting caught doing the wrong thing, but you and me both know he never could. From the first day he always did what was right, whether you told him to or not. ‘Right’ and ‘wrong’ isn’t the same as ‘following the rules’ and ‘breaking them.’” He tilted his head up again, and raised his voice. “I hope you’re writing this down, God, this is important. I hope you know what a  _ good _ angel you lost.”

The words felt like gravel in his throat. He took another long drink to try to swallow them down.

“What did good ol’ Agnes have to say about all this, huh?” Crowley reached into the pocket dimension to pull out  _ The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, _ and let it fall open to a random page. He squinted at the words, trying to decipher the ancient writing:

_ “2213. I tell ye thif, and I charge ye with my wordes. Four shalle ryde, and Four shall also ryde, and Three sharl ryde the Skye as twixt, and Wonne shal ryde in flames; and theyr shall be no stopping themme: not fish, nor rayne, nor rode, neither Deville nor Angel. And ye shalle be theyre alfo, Anathema.” _

“The fuck is that even supposed to mean? Who the shit is Anathema?” Crowley groaned and flipped to another page. “C’mon give me something I can laugh at.”

_ “1946. In the year 1970, a new Queene shalle arise in Londontown with no King, and soone enouf, Master Mercury shalle sing of Scaramouche and the Lord of the Flyes, and his fayme shalle out-live the worlde.” _

And Crowley did laugh, for the first time in nearly a year. “Yeah, alright, I’ll give ya that one. Kind of a pointless prophecy, but thanks for that.” He flipped to the very last page. “What’s your final verdict on this whole stupid world, huh?”

_ “3975. Thou, who sits ‘mongst the stars, must dyspose of thine bottle and return home, and thou shalle find thine Angel waiting in a Worlde newly born, whither Heaven and Helle battle no more.” _

Crowley read the prophecy.

Then he shook his head and read it again.

Then he took a deep breath, expelled all the alcohol from his system, and read it again.

“ _ ‘Thou, who sits ‘mongst the stars,’ _ Okay yeah that’s gotta be me, right? Unless she meant it as a metaphor or something?  _ ‘must dyspose of thine bottle,’ _ come on it’s gotta be me,  _ ‘and return home, and thou shalle find thine Angel waiting’ _ shit, it can’t be, really? _ ‘in a Worlde newly born, whither Heaven and Helle battle no more.' _ SHIT!”

Crowley was frantically flipping through the pages, trying to find another prophecy that could tell him about the current state of Earth, when a few sheets of paper fell out of the front cover. He dove to catch them, and when he laid them flat against the back of the book found some very familiar handwriting.

A map, and a detailed one at that, specifying the exact airbase where it was all scheduled to happen. The name and address of the Antichrist. Hastily-drafted but unfinished memos addressed to “The Most Holy Archangel Gabriel” about a plan to avert the apocalypse.

It was almost too good to be true.

And faster than you can say, “I’m coming home, angel,” Crowley unfurled his wings and took off towards Earth.

** _Don't you hear my call, though you're many years away?_ **

** _Don't you hear me calling you?_ **

** _Write your letters in the sand _ **

** _For the day I take your hand_ **

** _In the land that our grandchildren knew_ **


	4. in from the blue

The only reason that a person has an internal monologue is because it is not socially acceptable to have an  _ ex _ ternal monologue. As Crowley sped through clouds of planetary dust, there were no societal pressures on him to keep his monologue inside, and so he debated with himself aloud.

“He’s alive, he has to be. I mean, come on Agnes is  _ always _ right, and she said he’s  _ waiting, _ and ‘waiting’ means he’s  _ alive _ and he’s  _ okay _ and all I have to do is find him. And ‘a world newly born’? That means the apocalypse never happened, right? He did it, Aziraphale saved the whole world from Armageddon, I know he did.

“Fuck, what was I thinking running away? He needed me, and I just flew away? Why didn’t he tell me he figured out a way to stop it all? And what was the deal with the bookshop fire? I thought he must have been killed, shit did he just go up to Heaven? And that’s why I couldn’t sense him? Dammit, he should have just  _ told me _ he was going upstairs to talk to the archangels, should’ve given me some warning before letting me run away like that.

“Nah, that’s not fair, he didn’t know I would just leave. He probably thought I’d stick around and try to save the world myself. But come on, he’s gotta know that I just wanted to save  _ him _ right? Saving the planet would be a nice bonus, but he  _ knows _ that all I care about is him, doesn’t he?”

It had taken Crowley a year to get from Earth to Alpha Centauri, but less than a minute to get back. Strange how an emotion like hope can make your entire being feel weightless, full of nothing but air and the possibility of something better. He was zooming through the darkness like a balloon that had been untied and let loose.

Crowley skidded to a halt and landed on the moon, looking at the Earth below him.

This was not what he expected. 

He could barely see the surface of the earth through the sickly grey clouds that filled the atmosphere. From what he could tell, the oceans, that had once been so vibrant and blue when seen from afar, were a murky black where they even existed at all— it seemed that the they’d all but dried up, leaving continents that stretched and merged together. The surface of the Earth had no green in it at all. The whole world looked like a slab of concrete that had been stepped in before it had dried, an ugly bootprint of a thing. 

Crowley blinked. This couldn’t be right. Could this really be his planet, that he had loved for millenia?  _ This _ is what the Earth turned into when he abandoned it?  _ This _ was the work of the Four Horsemen? 

_ This _ is where Aziraphale was waiting for him?

What you must understand, dear reader, is the concept of time dilation. If you have seen the movie  _ Interstellar _ you may already know some about it, and about why Crowley found himself in his current situation. See, according to the concept of time dilation, time passes differently on Earth than it does everywhere else in the universe. 

If you were, today, to say your goodbyes to your friends and family and jump on a rocketship, traveling at the speed of light to Alpha Centauri, it would take you about four years to get there. And once you looked around and decided you have had enough, you could get on your space ship and travel for four more years to get back home. So you land back on Earth, eight years older than you were when you left, only to realize that  _ many  _ more than eight years have passed on Earth in your absence, all your friends have died, and their children only vaguely recognize you from pictures of their parents from the Old Days. Because while you, in your rocketship, sped quickly through  _ space, _ your home sped quickly through  _ time, _ and it is not your home anymore once you return to it.

This Earth was certainly not Crowley’s home anymore, and he realized it in this moment.

But he entered the smoggy atmosphere anyway. He was going to find his angel if it killed him.

** _In the year of '39 came a ship in from the blue_ **

** _The Volunteers came home that day_ **

** _And they bring good news of a world so newly born_ **

** _Though their hearts so heavily weigh_ **


	5. old and grey

Here is a list of things Crowley expected to find when he returned to Earth:

  * Aziraphale
  * his Bentley
  * the city of London

Other than that, his expectations were pretty low. I mean, how much could things have changed if Aziraphale had found a way to stop the apocalypse?

Here is a list of things Crowley actually did find when he returned to Earth:

  * lots and lots of rubble, where he knew buildings used to be
  * odd tendrils of things that could be considered plants, though no amount of his yelling or demonic miracles could heal their sickly brown color
  * the distinct smell of smoke and battery acid
  * a dull-grey sky, full of wispy-grey clouds, that met the putrid-grey surface of the land at the dead-grey horizon
  * absolutely no movement, no noise, no breeze, no breath
  * a layer of dust, half an inch thick, covering every surface

Crowley was beginning to realize that maybe Aziraphale didn’t stop the apocalypse after all.

But still, he had to be here somewhere, right?

“Angel?” he called out. He could feel his voice travel about five feet in front of him before falling to the ground, as dead and useless as everything else around him. He shouted again, “Aziraphale? Where are you?”

The rotting Earth did not respond.

He began to run through what used to be London streets, tripping over the ruins of seemingly ancient buildings. Hadn’t he been standing in this spot just a year ago? Hadn’t he seen thousands of humans walk in and out of these offices, shops, and homes? How quickly did had this block turned from a center of life to _ this? _

Crowley pulled the map of the airbase from his pocket, realizing belatedly that there was no way for him to know which direction he was heading. He had no idea how much the surface of the land had changed since he left, let alone what he would do with that information if he had it. 

He shuffled the papers, finding the note with the Antichrist’s name. _ Adam Young. 4 Hogback Lane. _Would the Antichrist still be on Earth? Crowley couldn’t imagine that anyone would choose to be here, even if they were The Proclaimed Ruler of the World. If he did find the Antichrist, he could find out where Aziraphale was. The Antichrist had to know that kind of thing, right?

Crowley chose a direction and started walking.

And he kept on walking.

And he walked until the sky grew dark and there was no more light to go by.

And he summoned Hellfire into the palm of his hand and kept walking.

And he walked as the silence and stillness of the world almost suffocated him.

And he hummed to himself as he walked. 

And he walked without ever looking back because he could not afford to get lost.

And he watched as the sun rose, a ball of white fire climbing to the treetops, and he imagined that if there were any birds around, they would start singing around now.

And then he realized that there _ were _ birds around. And treetops. And the air did not smell like nuclear waste, it smelled like freshly fallen leaves.

And before he could process it, Crowley had the wind knocked out of him. He fell face-first to the ground, and felt a boot pressing down on his back.

“Who the _ hell _ are you?” an unfamiliar voice asked.

Crowley coughed. “How about you let me see your face and then I’ll answer you?”

He heard a few voices muttering, and then the force on his back disappeared.

“Stand up _ slowly _ with your hands up,” the same voice commanded. He decided it was probably in his best interest to play along, so he stood up while holding his hands in plain sight, and turned around slowly to face his attackers.

They were the last thing he expected.

Four kids stood in front of him. They couldn’t be more than twelve years old, but every one of them held an intensity in their eyes that Crowley had never seen in a child before. There was a boy with a ripped jacket and a girl in a red rain poncho, holding what looked like handmade crossbows pointed right at Crowley. Another, smaller boy was hiding behind the two of them, examining Crowley through a broken pair of glasses. Standing next to him was a golden-haired boy with wide eyes and crossed arms. 

The girl, who Crowley guessed must be their leader, demanded, “Why are you here?”

“I didn’t realize there were any living humans here. Sorry, my bad, I’ll be going.”

“But why are you on Earth anyway?” the golden-haired boy asked. “Your lot came and destroyed everything, what are you looking for?”

_ “My lot?” _ Crowley scoffed. “What’s that supposed to mean? I have no idea what’s going on here, okay? I left Earth for one stupid year, and I came back and it was like this. I thought the apocalypse was stopped, I had no part in it. I just came back here to find, uh, something that I lost a long time ago.”

The kids looked at each other. None of them were expecting that. They whispered to each other, glancing at Crowley and gesturing vaguely. With a nod, they lowered their crossbows, and one of the boys approached Crowley with his hand extended.

“Alright. I’m Adam”

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “You’re Adam Young? The Antichrist? The Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness? That’s _ you?” _

Adam shrugged. “I guess. What’s your name?”

The kid’s hand was still extended towards him, so Crowley shook it. “Crowley. Demon.” He looked to the rest of the group. “Not here to hurt anyone though, I promise.”

“Oh, and this is Pepper, Brian, and Wensleydale.” Adam pointed to each of his friends, and the three of them waved, almost shyly. 

“Alright, yeah, okay,” Crowley said, not sure what to say. “Could you guys, uh, catch me up on the whole apocalypse thing? And how you’re alive when the world has _ literally _ended? And where the fuck this forest came from?” He still hadn’t grown used to the smell of living trees all around him.

“Could we catch you up over breakfast?” Brian asked. “I’m starving.”

Pepper rolled her eyes. “You’re always hungry, you’re gonna run down our apple supply one of these days.”

Crowley huffed a laugh. “I could go for breakfast.”

And so the four children led Crowley deeper into the woods, and Adam explained the events of the apocalypse. 

“So basically, what happened was there were these four things—and later we realized they were the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—and we thought that if we just killed all of them, the apocalypse would be over, right? Since their whole job was to end the world, if they didn’t exist, then the world wouldn’t end.”

_ Sounds familiar, _Crowley thought to himself.

“We put up a wicked good fight, and we got them all to disappear, and we thought it was over. But then these two other guys showed up. They didn’t say who they were, but we guess they were an angel and demon, because they said they needed the apocalypse to happen so they could have this huge war with each other. And I said that was stupid, that they wanted to end the world just so they could see whose gang was best, and they really didn’t like that. 

“So then there was this huge earthquake, and then Satan—I mean like _ real _ Satan, maybe you know him since you’re a demon and all—well, he showed up, and he was angry too. And he started yelling at me, telling me I was disobedient or something. So I told him something like, ‘Go away! Leave me and my friends and my world alone! Don’t destroy my world!’ and he just laughed at me. God, he had the worst laugh. Sounded like a dinosaur screaming.

“So then one moment we were standing at this airbase, with Satan and all this smoke and fire, and the next second we were here. Just the four of us, I mean, me and Pepper and Brian and Wensleydale. And we had no idea what had happened. We tried to run back to the base, but we couldn’t leave Hogback Wood. Like, we would run and run for hours but it was just like we were going in circles. And we tried a thousand times to get out and see what was going on in the rest of the world, but there’s no way out. Once you get to the border of the woods, you just suddenly end up where you started again.

“And that’s been our life, for uh, how long has it been, Wenselydale?”

The kid with the glasses furrowed his brow in concentration. “I think we’re on day three hundred fifty-five thousand, nine hundred fourteen. Or it may be fifteen.” 

Crowley’s jaw dropped. “It’s been almost _ a thousand _ years?”

Adam nodded. “Yep. We figured that when I said, ‘Leave my friends and my world alone,’ they took it really literally. So the four of us never change, and neither does Hogback Wood. We’re just stuck in time from, what year was that, 2018? And we never change. Just twelve years old forever, as far as we know.”

By now, they had stumbled upon a strange, log-cabin type shelter. “Is this your, uh, place?”

“Isn’t it cool? We built it ourselves,” Pepper said proudly. Crowley nodded. It was pretty impressive for a bunch of twelve-year-olds. There was a cozy-looking brick chimney, a tiled roof, even something that looked like a rocking chair sitting out front.

“Well, we had some help,” Brian shrugged, “from Mr. What’s-his-name.”

Crowley froze.

“Who’s this now?”

“Oh, uh, a friend, kind of,” Pepper said. “Weird guy. He stumbled in here kind of the same way you did, but it was near the beginning of when we first got here.”

“Wait.” Crowley shook his head. “Does he live here? With you?”

“Oh no,” Wensleydale said. “He has his own place on the Eastern edge of Hogback Wood.”

Crowley tried not to grind his teeth too hard. “And does he have a name?” 

The kids all looked guilty at each other. 

“Is his name, by any chance, Aziraphale?”

Adam spoke up when the rest looked at him expectantly. “Well, we all just call him Mr. What’s-his-name, because he said he shouldn’t be called that anymore.”

Crowley blinked. “What do you mean he shouldn’t be called that anymore? That’s his name, Aziraphale, the Principality, Angel of the Eastern Gate.”

“Oh, well, you see…” Adam looked to his friends for support, and they nodded in encouragement. “They kicked him out. He’s not an angel anymore.”

** _For the Earth is old and grey, little darlin', we’ll away_ **

** _But my love, this cannot be_ **

** _For so many years are gone though I'm older but a year_ **

** _Your mother's eyes from your eyes cry to me_ **


	6. the day i take your hand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here it is folks, the End. thank you for coming along with me on this journey!

Crowley was running.

He heard the kids shouting after him, asking if he still had more questions or if he still wanted breakfast. But he couldn’t stick around to chat after what Adam had said. He needed to hear Aziraphale’s voice, he  _ needed _ to know if it was true. Adam said, “They kicked him out,” but what does that really mean? Had Aziraphale fallen? Or had Heaven just cut ties with him? Was there a difference? Well of course there was a difference, Crowley of all beings knew that, and he hated to imagine that soon he would learn what exactly Aziraphale had gone through.

He was running due east. He was running and trying not to think of what would happen when he stopped. He was running and trying desperately to think of something to say when he saw the angel. Well, not an angel? Fuck, what the hell was he supposed to say? 

And suddenly, there it was in front of him. A little log cabin in the woods, almost identical to the one the kids had showed him.

He tried to swallow the lump growing in his throat as he approached the door. He raised his fist and knocked twice.

And the door swung open.

It’s an odd feeling, to come home after being away for a long time, and to see what your home has become in your absence. 

Maybe you’ve had that feeling, when you’ve returned home from vacation or prison or college, when you open your door and find everything exactly as it was when you left it. Your bed made and unslept-in, your curtains drawn, and your bedside table gathering dust. That’s a feeling of, “Huh. Things never change when I’m not here to change them.”

Or maybe you’ve had the equal but opposite feeling, when you’ve returned home from vacation or prison or college, when you open your door and wonder if you’ve got the wrong house. The furniture has been rearranged, the walls repainted, the carpeting redone. Or maybe the room has been ransacked, and your personal belongings are lying broken on the floor, and all your valuables are missing. Or maybe your key won’t even open the door because your landlord changed the locks while you were gone, and you wonder if it’s worth it to sneak in through your own window. In any of these cases, maybe you had that feeling of, “Oh. Things  _ do  _ change when I’m not here to keep them the same. This is not even my house anymore.”

Crowley felt all of these things at once when the door swung open. Because there he was,  _ that _ was Aziraphale, after all this time, looking almost exactly the same as when Crowley had left. Same ancient, long coat, though it was stained dark by dirt and age. Same white-blond hair, though it had grown somehow more wild, like ivy on the wall of an abandoned building. Same piercing, stormy eyes, though they looked somehow more distant, as if obscured by a thick fog. Yes, this was Aziraphale. But then, this was  _ not _ the Aziraphale that Crowley knew. 

The Aziraphale he knew was as uptight as he was rebellious. The Aziraphale he knew was a tartan enthusiast. The Aziraphale he knew was bright-eyed and well-meaning. The Aziraphale he knew was anxious and careful and calculated. The Aziraphale he knew was usually happy to see Crowley.

The Aziraphale that stood before him was none of these things.

The Aziraphale that stood before him, at first sight of Crowley, punched the demon in the stomach.

Crowley fell on his ass with a very graceful, “What the  _ fuck? _ ”

And before he knew what was happening, Aziraphale was pressing a foot to his chest and glaring at him down the length of a flaming sword. He hadn’t said a word.

Crowley stared back up at him, and the only sentence his mind supplied him with was, “Fuck, angel, nice to see you too.”

Aziraphale’s face did not change. “Tell me who you are.”

Weird that this same situation had happened twice in the span of maybe half an hour. Crowley understood the kids, but this? “Are you serious? It’s me, it’s Crowley. Remember me? I’m sorry I took so long to come back but-”

The pressure on his chest increased and his breath all but left his lungs. “A disguise won’t fool me. Crowley died before the apocalypse even happened. Tell me who you really are.”

“Please, Aziraphale-”

At the mention of the name, the flaming sword grew somehow hotter, fiercer, and closer to Crowley’s face. The demon realized that the sword was burning with Hellfire, and Aziraphale wasn’t even flinching. “Tell me how you know my name.”

“It’s me, it’s me, Crowley, your  _ friend,  _ just let me explain, okay? I didn’t die, I just ran away!”

Aziraphale narrowed his eyes. “Then tell me something only Crowley would know.”

Crowley tried to smile. “I know you gave away that sword back in Eden, and I have no idea how you got it back.”

“Anyone could know that,” Aziraphale spat back. 

“Okay, well,” Crowley took a deep breath (or, as deep a breath as he could, with Aziraphale’s weight still pressing into his chest. “I know that your bookshop burned down when the apocalypse was just getting started. And I know that I ran in there, thinking I could save you from the Hellfire, and then I thought I was too late and that you had died. I thought _ you were dead, _ Aziraphale, so I left. And now I know that leaving was the biggest mistake I am ever going to make.” Crowley felt tears in his eyes. “Because if I had just stayed, I could have helped you stop the apocalypse. I know we could have done it together if I wasn’t such an idiot. I know that I spent a year floating around in space feeling sorry for myself because I had no idea that you were still alive. And I know that if I knew you were here all alone, I would have come back in a heartbeat.”

Aziraphale’s face was still guarded, unreadable, so Crowley went on. “I know that even if we couldn’t save the world, I would rather die here with you in this fucking wasteland than live on without you. I know that I have never stopped thinking about you for  _ one second _ since the moment I left this stupid planet behind. Shit, years before that. I don’t think I’ve ever stopped thinking about you, angel. Not since the dawn of time. Because you’re the only thing that matters. In the whole blasted universe, you’re the  _ only  _ thing that matters to me.” 

He looked Aziraphale directly in the eye. “You wanna know something only the real Crowley would know? Alright. I know that I  _ love  _ you. That’s all there is to it. And I’m sorry it took me so long to say it. I’m sorry I let you go so long without ever knowing it. And I’m sorry if you don’t believe me. And I would be sorry for myself if you don’t love me too, but I think you do.” He let out a long sigh. “Is that something only I would know?”

Aziraphale stood, frozen and silent, for an agonizingly long moment. 

Then the flames that engulfed the sword vanished, and it fell to the dirt next to Crowley with a quiet  _ thump. _ Crowley stared at it, and then back at Aziraphale, and suddenly noticed that the pressure on his chest was gone, and Aziraphale was offering him his hand.

So he took it.

And Aziraphale pulled him up into a bone-crushing hug. 

Crowley had gone a year without touching another living being, so all this was a bit much for him. But Aziraphale had gone almost a thousand years, so all this was still not nearly enough. They had been standing there, just holding each other for what felt like hours, but was probably closer to forty-five seconds, when Crowley realized that Aziraphale was crying into his shoulder. 

“I had stopped hoping you would come back.” Aziraphale’s voice did not break as he said it. It’s hard to break something as already-broken as that, like sand, or like finely ground glass. “I thought you must be dead, or else you’d be here.”

Crowley tried to swallow the lump in his throat. “I thought  _ you _ were dead, angel, I didn’t-”

“Please, don’t.” Aziraphale held Crowley even tighter for just a moment before he dropped his hands and retreated back to the house. He paused for a moment in the doorway, and looking over his shoulder, sighed, “Well, come in.”

There was no one word that Crowley could think of to accurately describe the interior of Aziraphale’s little cottage. There were very few places where he could see the floor, the rest of it was covered in piles. It was hard to tell what the piles were made of. He guessed they must be books, or some strange version of books with thick pages and smudged ink. All four walls were lined with shelves, full of more piles. The whole room had a depressing feeling that Crowley couldn’t place. Everything felt out of place, like it was all hastily thrown together and just left to rot. 

“What, um…” Crowley didn’t know what he was asking. “What’s with the house?”

Aziraphale breathed out a humorless laugh. “Built it myself. Well, kind of. Oh, have you met Adam?”

Crowley nodded, still looking around the room,  still vaguely unsettled by the emptiness that filled the place.

“Yeah, great kid. Cool for an Antichrist. He told me what, um… what happened while I was gone.”

“All of it?”

“Well, I don’t know. Wouldn’t know what it is I don’t know.”

Aziraphale hummed. “He and his friends helped me. With building the house, I mean.” He gestured vaguely at the piles on the floor. “I’ve been meaning to clean up a bit but never got around to it. You know how it is. No deadlines in eternity.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Crowley felt himself nodding. He felt like he was intruding. What was it that they used to do together? “Uh, want a drink?”

Finally,  _ finally, _ Aziraphale smiled. It was a minuscule, painful thing, like a bit of asphalt stuck in your shoe. “I’ve been wanting a drink for a thousand years.”

With a snap, Crowley summoned two glasses and a bottle of 1787 Chateau Lafitte.

** _Don't you hear my call, though you're many years away?_ **

** _Don't you hear me calling you?_ **

** _Write your letters in the sand _ **

** _For the day I take your hand_ **

** _In the land that our grandchildren knew_ **

It was strange, what a good bottle of wine could do. Maybe it wasn’t so much the alcohol as it was the routine of it. The song and dance of, “More?” and “Yes, please,” and the brushing of fingertips. Maybe it was that they were sitting on the floor, like they had so many times in the past, and the wine was just another character in this script that they had memorized so long ago, and the familiarity of it all eased the tension between them. It wasn’t about getting drunk, it was the ceremony of drinking, and all that entails. 

“So, I take it you’re collecting books again?”

“In a way, I suppose.” Aziraphale ran his fingers over a stack of papers on the floor next to him. “I’ve been rewriting as many books as I can remember. Lucky for me, I have a pretty good memory for things like this.” He pointed to a shelf on the far side of the room. “But I can never get those right. The Shakespeares, I mean. I remember the characters and the plots, but I’m wretched with iambic pentameter. But that’s all there is left of Shakespeare. All that’s left of any book is in this room. It’s a pity I didn’t read more. Or learn more languages.” He looked regretfully into his glass. “Not that there’s anyone to enjoy them besides the kids. But that’s better than nothing.”

Crowley nodded. “So nothing survived the apocalypse outside this forest? How’s that supposed to work?”

“I don’t fully understand it myself. I guess based on what Adam told me, Satan made Hogback Wood into a sort of pocket dimension. Everything is safe and frozen in here. But because everything on the outside was destroyed, we’ve had to become very resourceful. Luckily I was paying attention when humans were first getting started off in the world, so it wasn’t too difficult to teach the children how to live off the land, once we realized it was their only option.”

“Live off the land?” Crowley tilted his head. “Why didn’t you just use a miracle or two when you needed?”

Aziraphale’s eyes flickered up to Crowley’s. “You think I  _ wouldn’t _ if I could?”

Crowley sputtered, “Shit, I mean, I didn’t know, I just mean that I’ve been able to so I just thought-”

“Well you thought wrong.” Aziraphale took a long swig from his glass, then sighed. “They took my wings, Crowley.”

He felt his heart plummet into his stomach. “Oh.” He fidgeted with his hands, trying to think of any adequate response.

“Quite right.” Aziraphale topped off his own glass, then moved to fill Crowley’s. “Before you ask, no. I didn’t really fall. I’m not a demon. I was forced to fight on the side of Heaven, when all that was happening. And then, in the end, Heaven triumphed over Hell, and in the middle of all the celebration, the Archangels took me aside and informed me that I was no longer in their books. It was a dishonorable discharge, of sorts. They took my wings, revoked my powers, removed my name from their files, and just left. And I just wandered around the Earth until I found Hogback Wood. So I’ve been living here, with no miracles, ever since.”

Crowley stared at Aziraphale with wide eyes. Aziraphale spoke with close to no emotion in his voice. As if he was just giving Crowley a history lesson and not sharing a personal trauma. He reached out a hand to place it on top of Aziraphale’s, and caught his eye again.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.”

Aziraphale gave him a quick smile too weak to reach his eyes. “Of course, dear boy. You couldn’t have known.”

“Well, what can I do to help you? I still have my powers, anything you want, ange- shit I mean, fuck, um, the kids did mention not to say your, uh, old name anymore. Should I call you Mr. What’s-his-name too, then?”

And this time, Aziraphale really did laugh. It was still a small, tired thing, but it was true. “Call me whatever you want, Crowley.” He moved his hand just slightly, slowly interlacing their fingers together. “I always did like it when you called me ‘angel.’ I think I could get used to hearing that again. Even if it's not quite true.”

“Alright then, my angel. Tell me, what can I miracle up for you?”

Aziraphale didn’t even have to think about it. “A book. A real one, with  _ typed  _ pages and a hard cover. Maybe with a nice illustration.”

Crowley didn’t even have to think about it either. “Easy. I actually don’t even need a miracle for that one. Here.” He reached into his very own pocket dimension and pulled out  _ The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch _ . “I was able to save it from the fire at your bookshop. You like this one, right?”

He didn’t have to ask that, seeing as Aziraphale’s mouth was hanging open in shock as he held the book with delicate hands. “How did you… Crowley, you don’t know what this means to me.”

“Means a lot to me too, believe it or not.” He flipped to the last page. “See this one? When I read that, that’s how I knew you were still alive. It’s how I knew to come home.”

But Aziraphale wasn’t even looking at the words. His eyes were fixed on Crowley. “Home?”

Crowley shrugged as if to say,  _ I know this is a big deal but I am very much going to pretend it isn’t. _ “Yeah, home. To you. Doesn’t matter if it’s a post-apocalyptic wasteland. It’s home if it’s with you.”

And suddenly, Aziraphale’s lips were on his. After a moment, his brain caught up to his body and he kissed back. Desperately. Softly. Hungrily. Tenderly. _Finally_. So, so lovingly.

When Aziraphale drew back, all he said again was, “Home.”

“Yeah,” Crowley breathed. “We are.”

** _Don't you hear my call, though you're many years away?_ **

** _Don't you hear me calling you?_ **

** _All your letters in the sand _ **

** _Cannot heal me like your hand_ **

** _For my life, still ahead, pity me_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading this! i haven't written any kind of angst or drama for this fandom before, hopefully i did an okay job of it (feedback is always appreciated :^)). i officially think of this fic every time i listen to "'39" by Queen, it's a blessing and a curse (but mostly a blessing, i love these characters too much). 
> 
> more to come in this series! i'm currently trying to decide between two different fic ideas of very similar styles, so expect that soon-ish.
> 
> thank you again for reading!
> 
> [fic playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1tnclmrqCND9CttOhMdn58?si=WhFOiypoRpW9SGoqM0DDOA) (just for one last hurrah and because i adore every song on this playlist) | [come yell at me on tumblr](https://leftinthebentley.tumblr.com/)


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